1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computing equipment with a touch screen. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for determining an input in computing equipment with a touch screen.
2. Description of the Related Art
A touch screen is used for processing an input on a screen without an additional input device. When an alphanumeric character or a specific position on the screen is touched by a user's finger or an object, a corresponding position is recognized and then input position information is provided for software processing. The touch screen is constructed by attaching a touch panel on a conventional screen. An invisible infrared ray constituting a large number of square lattices flows on the surface of the touch panel so that the touch panel can recognize a contact point when the lattices are touched by a finger tip or a specific object.
Due to convenience in use and an intuitive interface of the touch screen, the touch screen is used for an announcing device in a place such as a subway, a department store, a bank, etc. In addition, the touch screen is also widely used in computing equipment such as a computer, a mobile phone, etc. When using the computing equipment, a user uses a finger or a stylus pen to provide an input to the touch screen. In this case, a display screen of the computing equipment has a limited size to provide portability, and thus a screen configuration has to be changed according to a type of an input tool. That is, when using the stylus pen, input items can be densely arranged on a screen. In contrast, when using the finger, an input position is indicated with less accuracy than the stylus pen, and thus the input items have to be arranged using a relatively larger and wider space on the screen.
As described above, in the computing equipment with the touch screen, a screen is properly configured according to an input tool. However, the use of the stylus pen is inconvenient since the user has to carry the stylus pen, and the use of the finger is also inconvenient since information that can be displayed on one screen is limited in size. Accordingly, there is a need to address the problems of using the aforementioned input tools.